


The Beginning

by A Bean (A_Bean)



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Blind Cecil Palmer, But that is just how it be, Carlos POV, Carlos does not experience time the same way Cecil does, Carlos is my boy, Carlos is new in town and hasn't gotten together with Cecil yet, Cecil Palmer May or May Not Be Human, Cecil Palmer is Described, Cecil Palmer's Fashion Sense, Cecil is so bad at flirting, Eldritch Abomination Cecil Palmer, Episode 1 transcript kind of, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, I owe my soul to cecilspeaks on tumblr, I tried to keep it vague, M/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23635627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Bean/pseuds/A%20Bean
Summary: Carlos wants to run away, right now, because he knows that this is his last chance to never, ever fall in love again.But he doesn't.An intern points an ashy grey finger, longer than it should be, at him, and the radio host turns around to see.And he has the most beautiful eyes.
Relationships: Cecil Palmer & Carlos
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76





	The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I got the transcript for the episode from the AMAZING cecilspeaks.tumblr.com 
> 
> I wanted to write Carlos's thoughts (or what I imagined them to be) from the first episode. Please keep in mind that the times are weird in this. Cecil talks as if everything has happened in one day and for Carlos it's all happening in the span of multiple weeks.
> 
> But then again, time doesn't work in Night Vale, so it doesn't matter. :) Please leave a review!
> 
> Also, there is a link in there to a real cool thing and I hope you guys find it. It shouldn't be hard. Nothing else is underlined so just click on what is.

Carlos has only been here for a few days. So far it really is the most scientifically interesting community he has ever found.

His favorite thing so far is the sun and the sky. It rises and sets, loudly, each morning and night and the sky changes to various different purples one day, red the next, and then… frankly alarming shades of a neon-pink that could only have come from an 80s phase. It lasts several weeks, interspersed with the horrid yellows, greens, and a general 80s texture pattern that Carlos would rather not have to look at every day. 

_A new man came into town today._

Carlos finds the bloodstone circles everywhere a little unsettling, but they're not hard to get used to. Sometimes he has to bleed to open some doors. It's not hard, and he has enough scabs to pick at anyway.

_Who is he? What does he want with us?_

He has a team of scientists now. He vaguely recalls that he did not come with a team of scientists. He was- well he was running- but he has a team now and they are just as excited about science as he is. They are wonderful, and not his friends. They do science with him, and they talk with him, and they let him lead the expeditions that there are so many to go on. They joke with him, and laugh with him, but they are not his friends because they are missing that… connection.

The connection like… like an electron is missing from the loop they have together. That spark isn't there within the scientific circle. 

_Why his perfect and beautiful haircut? Why his perfect and beautiful coat?_

_…He says he is a scientist._

_'I **am** a scientist,'_ Carlos thinks as he idly listens to the radio host one night, after everyone else on his team has gone home.

_Well…we have all been scientists at one point or another in our lives._

This gives Carlos pause. Was this going to be a conversation? Was another quirk of Night Vale thrust upon him now? Could the Voice read his thoughts?

_But why now? Why here? And just what does he plan to do with all those breakers and humming electrical instruments in that lab he’s renting – the one next to Big Rico’s Pizza?_

Well, that answered that. It was still unsettling, though, he'd not yet met someone who knew where his lab was or what was inside it, other than his team of not-friends. Maybe they had said something to the radio host.

Did the radio host have a name?

Nevermind. Stick to science, Carlos. 

_No one does a slice like Big Rico's. No one._

* * *

He calls a town meeting a while later to talk about what he was doing here. The radio host last night had wondered what he was doing here, so why not… tell them? He didn't meet the host during the meeting, but he had heard the broadcast afterwards.

_That new scientist – we now know it’s named Carlos – called a town meeting. He has a square jaw, and teeth like a military cemetery. His hair is perfect, and we all hate, and despair, and love that perfect hair in equal measure._

He blinks at the initial use of 'it' as his pronoun. There is so much fondness in the host's voice for Carlos already and they've never had a face to face interaction. He's slightly worried, but the radio host moves on to Old Woman Josie's corn muffins and Carlos forgets. He did agree that they lacked salt, and wondered if he would ever get to meet the angels.

_Carlos told us that we are by far the most scientifically interesting community in the U.S., and he had come to study 'just what is going on around here'._

Carlos grinned at the radio host's mimicry of his words. It was cute, sort of.

_He grinned, and everything about him was perfect, and I fell in love instantly._

Carlos reeled back from the radio, smile falling away instantly. Love? _Love?_ He hadn't even- he'd never met this person on the other side of the radio, hadn't even seen him at the meeting. For someone to fall in love by looks only-- no, that wasn't right. That was being… he didn't know what it was being, and there was a word for it he could not remember. This was wrong. He didn't come here to… to be _hunted_ after, by some lovesick radio host who had not bothered to seek him out at the conference. 

_Government agents from a vague yet menacing agency were in the back, watching. I fear for Carl-_

Carlos shuts off the radio as the host says his name once more. No. He was- he was not here for love. He was here to get away from it. 

* * *

Later he hears the rest of the broadcast, after his radio had turned back on by itself and the host was speaking about NRA stickers. Carlos ordered one, out of curiosity. And, opposite to what he'd thought was going to happen, nobody looked at him oddly for screaming right outside his door. 

He talks to the people of Night Vale later about the house that does not exist. None of the scientists had been brave enough to knock on the door. 

_“It seems like it exists,” explained Carlos and his perfect hair. “Like it’s just right there when you look at it. And it’s between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not.”_

Carlos grits his teeth and understands that this radio host loves his hair. Maybe he'll do something about it. But later. Science is more important, at the moment. 

_But, he says, they have done experiments and the house is definitely not there. At news time, the scientists are standing in a group on the sidewalk in front of the nonexistent house, daring each other to go knock on the door._

He understands that the Voice can See him, somehow, whenever it chooses. This is both incredibly interesting and uncomfortable; but it's worth exploring so he says he'll do something about it later.

Carlos sees the lights above the Arby's. He, like everyone else, knows that it cannot be anything good. 

So he goes on with his life.

_Carlos and his scientists at the monitoring station near Route 800 say their seismic monitors have been indicating wild seismic shifts – meaning to say that the ground should be going up and down all over the place. I don’t know about you folks, but the ground has been as still as the crust of a tiny globe rocketing through an endless void could be._  
_Carlos says that they’ve double-checked the monitors and they are in perfect working order. To put it plainly, there appears to be catastrophic earthquakes happening right here in Night Vale that absolutely no one can feel._

_Well… submit an insurance claim anyway. See what you can get, right?_

He's baffled again that this radio host knows what he's doing. That he can just be seen whenever the Voice decides.

He's upset that this is at all possible.

He's even more upset that it's so scientifically interesting that he eventually stops telling himself he'll do something about it.

* * *

Night Vale was hard enough to get into.

It's even harder to leave. 

Something that is not his own mind tells him _'Night Vale is only open for those who need to find it.'_

And, being a scientist, he deduces that he cannot leave now, either.

To his surprise, though, as the weeks go on, the radio host does not make an effort to try and find him. He does not come to the lab next to Big Rico's pizza, though there have been some interesting people that Carlos has seen come through the line as he eats his weekly government-mandated piece of pizza. He likes to observe them, because that is what he does. 

There is a being there called Josh who sometimes is a walking stick, or a frog, or an aloe-vera plant, or once he was a Rolls Royce. He comes with his mother Diane. 

Old Woman Josie spots Carlos every week sitting at the same table eating the same slice of pizza. She comes with the angels, who are fans of Big Rico's and like to accompany her when she goes each week. She sits and talks to him as the Erikas wait in line and save her spot for her, so she doesn't have to stand for all that time. Her hips, she says, are not what they used to be.

Then around the time the Erikas are near the front, a man comes in, and he is not tall or short, not thin or fat. Sometimes he is wearing what looks like a uniform.[ Most times he is not.](https://shitcecilpalmerwouldwear.tumblr.com/)

Carlos likes the way the man dresses no matter what day it is. His uniform consists of black pants, a white button-up shirt with the sleeves always rolled halfway up the arms of the man, and a purple vest over it with a purple tie. His socks are the most atrocious color of black Carlos has ever seen, and he pairs them with shiny black shoes. His blonde hair is always impeccably combed back when he wears his uniform. He wears purple-rimmed glasses, and on his arms are tattoos of something Carlos does not want to know because every time he looks at them he gets a headache.

He has never seen the man's face. Once he comes, Carlos is done with his pizza, and he leaves.

* * *

The first time he hears about the weather it's also on the radio. Apparently the radio is very important here, so he only listens to it at work. Everyone stops to listen to the weather, putting down whatever they're doing- including him as some force keeps his mouth shut as the weather plays above their heads.

...He supposes that a radio station's got to play music sometime. 

"The sun didn't set at the right time today," Carlos says to his scientists the second the weather is over. "I checked the clocks and everything… it set ten minutes later than it was supposed to."

_The sun didn’t set at the correct time today, Carlos and his team of scientists report. They’re quite certain about it. They checked multiple clocks and the sun definitely set ten minutes later than it was supposed to._  
_I asked them if they had any explanations but they did not offer anything concrete. Mostly they sat in a circle around a desk clock, staring at it, murmuring, and cooing._

"What the hell?" Carlos exclaims as the man on the radio narrates exactly what he's doing and as he offers no explanation as to why the sun is setting late.

He supposes that 'I asked if they had any explanations' said over the radio in real-time is a good a question as any.

He supposes lots of things.

He still doesn't say anything and resolves to finally meet this man who can see him anywhere.

* * *

He goes to the radio station under the guise of testing. Testing is what a scientist does. He is a scientist. Therefore, testing. 

He's nervous. He knows he's nervous. He does not think about this fact.

He's greeted by an intern bleeding on the doors for him and he enters the three-story building with a single, long hallway. He walks in with his box, which is set to detect the radio host (Carlos isn't really sure how he set it up but it works and that's all that matters) and he walks in. 

A door roars and mysterious lights flash behind it, and shadows dance across the foggy glass. It says STATION MANAGEMENT. As he passes the doors he feels various strong emotions rise in him that he has never felt before. He keeps walking and the feelings fade.

He ventures through the darkest part of the building and he is sure he feels something touch his shoulder but he continues. He comes out at the end, where the station is lit better with natural light from windows, and there is a large space to his left where there are many desks, some used and some not. There are photos on the wall. Through the windows Carlos can see three stories down. He had not gone up any stairs. 

He decides not to dwell on this.

Directly in front of him is the recording booth, and next to that is the sound booth, and next to that is another hallway with another door containing STATION MANAGEMENT.

His device beeps to the left.

He follows it and is greeted by a man who is not tall or short, or thin or fat, wearing a purple vest and white button up and purple tie to go with his purple vest and black pants and he has tattoos of an eldritch god on the skin of his arms where the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up. He is talking to two younger people. Carlos cannot remember them.  
The radio host is holding a cup of coffee in his hand. 

Carlos wants to run away, right now, because he knows that this is his last chance to never, ever fall in love again.

But he doesn't.

An intern points an ashy grey finger, longer than it should be, at him, and the radio host turns around to see. 

And he has the most beautiful eyes. 

* * *

"I, um," he says, and it's not very scientific at all. 

"Carlos!" The radio host says, grinning. It's more of a squeak.

He sets down the coffee, and Carlos knows he's fucked.

"Have we met?" He says, and the box which he is still holding in his hands is beeping at a normal rate, because he is not close enough to the radio host for it to know that he is there. 

"Not formally," the radio host says. His mouth is wide. "I'm Cecil Palmer, the Voice of Night Vale." He pauses. "Oh, look at me, being all presumptuous with a title…"

He's cute. Carlos knows he's cute. His voice is cute. He looks like he could kill an entire civilization and he's cute. 

"Um… Carlos," he says, because he can't get out the right words. "I'm a scientist."

"Oh, gosh, how amazing!" Ceil Palmer says, "I mean, of course I've heard you're a scientist. Is that for science?" He asks, pointing at the box Carlos is holding. "What exactly do you do?"

The thing that strikes Carlos as important is that Cecil actually sounds interested. "Oh, this?" He holds up the box and it beeps faster. "I'm, uh, testing for, er, materials."

"It's really going," Cecil remarks. "Maybe you'd like to see inside my recording booth? There might be some materials in there?"

"Sure," Carlos says, because he does not know how to say no.

Cecil leads him into his booth and he sits in the small chair. Carlos stands there awkwardly as Cecil puts his headphones around his neck and the intern with the grey skin and too-long greasy black hair glides into the sound booth next to them.

"That's Intern Kareem," Cecil explains. "Say hi, Kareem."

Kareem waves a bony hand, peering out from under his hair. His eyes are too big for his head.

Carlos waves the box around, first not at Cecil, then at him. 

Well, it's more towards his mic. But he's sitting right up to his mic, so it's easy for the box to know that Cecil is right there. 

Cecil looks at Carlos with all three eyes, and it's now that Carlos notices that the two that would be considered 'human' are slightly clouded. 

"Care to tell us what this all means?" Cecil asked, gesturing to another smaller microphone sitting in the corner. "I have a time slot long enough for an interview."

"N-no, I can't," Carlos says, backing away, because- well, he's not sure why but he wants to leave. He ran away from love. He isn't here for more of it. 

As he leaves he understands that he needs to have a scientific reason for finding 'materials'. 

"You all need to evacuate immediately." That sounds good enough.

With the way the rest of the town is going he wouldn't be surprised that the radio station is incredibly radioactive. 

He walks out and thinks, the radio station is… _radio_ active.

He can't help but snicker.

* * *

_Carlos, perfect and beautiful, came into our studios during the break earlier but declined to stay for an interview. He had some sort of blinking box in his hand covered with wires and tubes. Said he was testing the place for “materials.”_

_I don’t know what materials he meant but that box sure whistled and beeped a lot. When he put it close to the microphone it sounded like, well, like a bunch of baby birds had just woken up. Really went crazy._

_Carlos looked nervous. I’ve never seen that kind of look on someone with that strong of a jaw. He left in a hurry. Told us to evacuate the building. But then, who would be here to talk to sweetly to all of you out there?_

Carlos groans as he places his head on his desk. Does the radio host really need to tell everyone about _everything?_

The host- Cecil- continues on with the closing of his show.

_Settling in to be another clear night and pretty evening here in Night Vale._

Inexplicably, there is a noticeable change in the atmosphere not just around Carlos, but around the Big Rico's Pizza building and beyond that, through the city and up into the sky. The wind stills, the cars eternally coming and going slow, the lights above the Arby's glow a little less harshly and still in their buzzing around the sky, like hearing Cecil's voice was the key to calm them. 

Carlos himself finds that he relaxes as his attention is held rapt to the little radio speaking to him. His heartbeat eases and a soothing feeling washes over him as Cecil speaks again. 

_I hope all of you out there have someone to sleep through it with. Or, at least, good memories of when you did._

He sighs happily, and for just those few moments, the world was right so long as Cecil was there. Nothing was wrong if he was still there, talking to Carlos, keeping bad things away from him with the wall of sweet, baritone words he created. 

_Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight._

Everything would be okay. 

And maybe, sometime, he'd get the courage to talk to the Voice of Night Vale a little more.


End file.
